the Vampire's Mistress part two

page 70

Luckily, I ran into Mark and after recounting the unfortunate events, he had agreed to let me stay in their house until the embassy sorted out the mess, which almost took a couple of more months and that was why we happened to get  together.

An when Mark finished, Mom clapped her hands together and said, “ Splendid! What a golden heart you have my boy.  Why, I bet there aren’t any young man with such a benevolence as you have, nor express such compassion just as you’ve shown Angie.

She’s not always a very, agreeable person, quick tempered---“

“ Stubborn and reckless.” Gab added in a teasing undertone as she took a seat next to Mom while placing a plastic tray laden with a plateful, of brownies  and two cups of steaming cocoa.

Before I could shot her a look, Karen arrived in a  fresh change of clothing, with a towel wrapped around her head in a typical, turban style and  wickedly put in:

“ drools all over her pillows and bed-sheets!”  my punishment was to walk right over her and tickled her, until her sides became too painful and tears were licking down her cheeks.   Her voice had gone hoarse by giggling too much, and begged me to stop.

When I turned, I saw a slight smile curve at the edges of Mark’s delectable lips.

Now, that’s an interesting trivia.  I can see that my visit will not be a total waste of  effort. I wonder what else I can learn about you with your sister’s help.

The next few hours left me fidgeting uncomfortably and squirming with embarrassment  in my seat especially after we were done eating and Mom brought the stack of old, family albums for Mark to see.

Gab and Karen merely grinned smugly. They looked adorable way back on cradlehood.

Unlike my pictures, which resembled the images of  Man’s Evolution, wherein my physical appearance had slowly improved with each life phase.

Each photo was accompanied by an interesting tidbit even I, didn’t know.

I found, to my horror, how worse they were.

Like the one with me on an old-fashioned princess costume. A small, silver tiara sat atop my curled hair, I looked only about six, astride a mechanical brown phony on a carousel, my red as lobster’s face turned up in a furious scowl.

 “ We sweet-talked Angie into joining the medieval costume contest on the town’s festival. Our bribe was to let her ride a small phony if she wins afterwards.  I couldn’t find one that wasn’t expensive and since no seller was willing to give me one on a monthly installment basis, I took her to the Jolly Goblin’s amusement park and put her on one of the mechnical moving horses on the carousel.

However, she soon discovered that it wasn’t real phony and threw a fit. She was bawling,

I remember her giving the teenage attendant  a black eye when he refused to take her down, it was right after he was excused that we took this photo…”

Or the one where I was only a toothless toddler, except for the few wisps of dark brown hair, there wasn’t much to cover my wide head.  I was sucking my thu8mb, peeking from a then, much younger mom’s shoulder.  My one, dimpled butt cheek visible from the low jumper I had.

“ it was her third birthday, being unusually quiet, and well-behaved. Then the other kids  started complaining about a weird smell.  Gab said it smelled like poop.

I lifted the diaper and saw..”

I was more than glad when Mark suddenly stood up to announce that he was getting sleepy and I took this opportunity to accompany him to his room, which also happens to be my old room.

Save for the Master’s bedroom that mom uses, it was the second to the biggest room of our house.

Then Gab, who was staying on their sorority house with several of her Theta sisters. And because Karen was too “grown-up” to share this room with me, she used the old room that used to be the nursery as her own, so it left only me, in this room.

I watched Mark take it all in with interest.

The floral-patterened yellow gingham curtains that covered the windows, the numerous posters of young male celebrities that were spread all around the ceiling in walls in such a way, they seemed to merge into countless assortment of nose, lips and eyes of every color staring down at the room’s occupant.

 The twin dresser table, one walk-in closet that must still be filled with what little there was in my wardrobe, one chipped formica table that served as the makeshift nightstand was on the single, four-poster’s bed beside the fake, jade china vase that held only a few, now, heavily wilted red roses that Josh often gave Gab during their first dates.

The computer was shoved against one corner of a wallpaper-free wall near the windowsill.

The other stood a wooden bookcase which contains every book I’ve ever bought.

Which, although not as impressive as the ocean of books in Mark’s library, and mainly consisted of paperbacks and series editions.

Was remarkable in its simplicity.   The study desk with the overnight lamp was still bent downward, its base nearly touching the now, dust and cob web coated desk.

Under it was a plastic paper bin.

How many times had I sat in that creaky swivel chair? Tearing yellow papers on my yellow pad and crumpling them so I could throw them with careless abandon on that plastic bin? Especially when my mind was a blank, and no new idea that would complete the missing puzzle on the next chapter I was working on? I mused, feeling an inexplicable wave of sadness well up.  

I wasn’t even half-way to finishing my manuscript, when the events that altered my life had struck and I was forced to leave all of this behind.

I knew that if I only reached for the drawer on my desk,  and open its lock with the small key hanging on a thin, red knitting string I kept hidden behind the worn beret I draped on a clothes rack behind my door.

A sudden longing to look at my hand-written drafts seized me, and I almost went straight for the door to remove the beret if the sound  of Mark, softly clearing his throat did not pushed through my thoughts.

“ What?” I asked, a little annoyed to be interrupted from my melancholy musings.

“ No need to get your feathers ruffled. But isn’t there a tiny, bit of misunderstanding that you have forgotten mentioning to me?”

Misunderstanding? was Mark referring to the unexpected change on his sleeping situation and was finding it unsuitable to his highly exalted parsonage?

  I  was referring to the fact that you managed to convince me to let you return here under a false  pretense that it’s Christmas when according to a quick research I’ve conducted---isn’t due for  another week.

“ Well, mistress would you care to explain yourself? Or do you want me to extract the information from you?”  Mark crossed his arms over his chest to pin me with a look.

Even without bridging the few, short steps that separated us, effectively made him look forbidding.

“really? But  I thought it was already the twenty fifth. Maybe I just didn’t mark the calendar right….”

“ Mistress!”

“ oh, Alright,  that was all a big, piece of crap. I knew it wasn’t really Christmas yet but since I wanted to come home very badly---“

He was there instantly in front of me. His arm closed over my waist, pulling me closer to his side, cutting any other excuses I thought about making.

“ Yes, I know that you love your family dearly and miss them a great deal.

I don’t object if you make a request about seeing them more often but,”  here, he put his finger on my nose and tapped it lightly, an affectionate gesture that both unnerved and surprised me.

“ I hope you would never attempt to lie to me again.   It grieves me to think that you don’t trust me well enough for you to be keeping secrets from me.”

“yeah, I’m sorry Mark.”  I said, and meant it.